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career

I’ve always wondered what the giants of our industry were like their first day at work. Were they different from everybody else or just yet another rookie in the bullpen?

There are countless stories retelling a CEO’s rise to power, each describing situations where some critical trait of the soon-to-be giant propelled them past their challenges. If you were to sticky note (yes I made that a verb) all of these traits from all of these stories, I don’t believe there is a wall large enough to accommodate them. I do believe, however, that there is one trait every single one of them have in common.Continue Reading…

I was thinking back to a point 15 years ago when my kids were 2 and 3 years old. I thnk the first word they learned was “mine.”

That stuck-in-my-head memory came as a result of listening to two managers talk about moving an employee from one group to the other. I was fully expecting to hear “I’ll let him join your group if you give me a bushel of corn and a couple of otter skins.”

What is it about being a manager that makes many of us so territorial and possessive? It’s almost as if deep down we feel we own our employees, as if our value and importance rises by the number of people we manage. Continue Reading…

It’s a mutual friend’s Christmas party and I’ve just been introduced to you. After a few minutes of conversation I ask you “What do you do for a living?”

How did you respond?

How do you describe what you do for a living? I always wrestle with that. I’m a degreed electrical engineer that became a software engineer and haven’t written a lick of professional code in 15 years of engineering management and leadership. Yet none of those are the right answer.